Corn Stalks

Corn Stalks!  We have cut, cured and bundled our select corn stalks and they will be available to decorate your porches and driveways for this fall season.  Unlike other corn stalks that you can by at the box stores, these are grown on our farm and contain field corn as well as select broom corn varieties (sorghum) that give it unique fall colors instead of dull brown. After spring harvest we plant these varieties in early July to ensure proper size and seasonal timing.  We only grow them for decoration so no ears are harvested from them (it's dent corn anyway which is really only suitable for animal feed and broom corn produces no ears).  After the seeds are up we only use a little bit of fertilizer as strong summer winds or tropical storms can blow over a row of very tall yet thin stalks which is what heavy nitrogen will grow for this particular crop.  At harvest we hand cut the stalks and dry them for two days in the field.  They are then bundled and stored in the dry barn to finish the curing process.  We will be selling them along with our other fall products at the McIntosh Fall Festival on Saturday, October 19th so we hope to see you there.  Below is some additional info on corn stalks.

Broom Corn- In 1797 Levi Dickenson, a farmer in Hadley, Massachusetts, made a broom for his wife, using the tassels of a variety of sorghum (Sorghum vulgere), a grain he was growing for the seeds. She thought Levi’s broom was exceptionally good and told friends and neighbors about it. As the demand for these brooms grew, Levi grew more and more of the sorghum.  By about 1810, the sorghum used in brooms, had acquired a new name, Broom Corn, as the British called all seed bearing plants, "corn." The sorghum also looks similar to the sweet corn plant, and its tassel had become the broom material still used in quality brooms today. 

Dent Corn-  Dent Corn (Zea mays var. indentata) is a variety of corn with a high soft starch content. It received its name because of the small indentation ("dent") at the crown of each kernel on a ripe ear of corn. It is a variety developed by northern Illinois farmer, James Reid in 1846. Most of today's hybrid corn varieties and cultivars are derived from it. This variety won a prize at the 1893 World's Fair.

Most of the corn grown in the United States today is Yellow Dent or a closely related variety derived from it.  Dent corn is the variety used in food manufacturing as the base ingredient for cornmeal flour (used in the baking of cornbread), corn chips, tortillas and taco shells. Starch derived from this high-starch content variety is turned into plastics, as well as fructose which is used as a sweetener (High-fructose corn syrup) in many processed foods and soft drinks.